So far, in such various fields as medical treatment, medicine, chemistry, physiological hygiene, sanitary, biology, food, or material and so on, it is necessary for control of a position in order to separate a target substance of assays etc. and capture the pure target substance.
For example, in the field of the medical treatment, there are such various methods of assay as chemiluminescence methods (CL method) such as an enzyme immunoassay (EIA) that utilizes an antigen-antibody reaction, a chemiluminesence immunoassay (CLIA) in a narrow sense in which a chemical illuminescent compound is used for marking as a tracer for immunoassay, and a chemilluminescent enzyme immunoassay (CLEIA) which detects enzyme activity with high sensitivity by using a chemical luminescent compound in a detection system.
As an inspection method, using any of the techniques as described above, there have been known the magnetic particles method using magnetic particles each having a surface coated with an antigen or an antibody, the latex method using latex having a surface coated with an antigen or an antibody, the beads method using spherical beads (non-magnetic) each having a surface coated with an antigen or an antibody, or the so-called tubecoating method using cells each having an inner wall coated with an antigen or an antibody. When taking into account efficiency of capturing an antigen or an antibody as well as production cost and running cost, however, methods using magnetic bodies such as magnetic particles or beads are far more advantageous.
Incidentally, when the magnetic particles per se hold micro-substances, the less the size of each magnetic particle is formed, the more the quantity of the micro-substances can be captured by whole the magnetic particles, on the condition that the total mass or volume of whole the magnetic particles is fixed. Because, reduced size of magnetic particle results in increase in the ratio of surface to volume. As a magnetic charge per a magnetic particle is reduced and an influence of the magnetic field on each magnetic particle is reduced certainly in this case, however, there has been a problem that an attraction becomes weaker and the control of magnetic field becomes more difficult.
On the other hand, if a volume of each magnetic particle increases, the influence of the magnetic field to each magnetic particle enhances, the attraction becomes stronger, and a control of magnetic field becomes easier. On the condition that the total mass of the magnetic particles is equal, however, there has been a problem that the magnetic particle is hard to capture micro-substances and the efficiency in capturing micro-substances decreases.
Furthermore, capturing substances on magnetic particles per se requires such treating as coating and so on. Particularly, there has been a problem that to treat the surface of magnetic particle per se optionally so as to enhance the efficiency in capturing micro-substance is technically and costly difficult.
It is a first object of the present invention to provide an improved carrier holding micro-substances, system suspending such carriers, apparatus for manipulating such carriers and method of controlling positions of such carriers, therefore.
It is a second object of the present invention to provide a general-purpose carrier holding micro-substances, system suspending such carriers, apparatus for manipulating such carriers and method of controlling positions of such carriers which can hold various substances that can not directly affected by remote forces, and that can not directly be bonded to magnetic particles, and can hold various remote-acting bodies, so that diverse inspections and so on can be executed for various target substances.
It is a third object of the present invention to provide a carrier holding micro-substances, system suspending such carriers, apparatus for manipulating such carriers and method of controlling positions of such carriers which combines a low-cost carrier which is superior in capturing target substances and is easily treated but has not a remote operating character, with remote-acting bodies which are superior in remote operating and controlling, without necessity of depending upon magnetic particles having an extraordinary particular surface or substance for capturing target substances, and, which needs not treat the magnetic particles per se, is produced at low cost, is easy to operate remotely, has a super capturing-ability, can efficiently and promptly process with high precision in determining quantity, and is easy to be dealt with.
It is a forth object to provide a carrier holding micro-substance, system suspending such carriers, apparatus for manipulating such carriers and method of controlling positions of such carriers which can execute various actions and precision and complex controls by reliable remote operating.
It is a fifth object to provide a carrier holding micro-substances, system suspending such carriers, apparatus for manipulating such carriers and method of controlling the positions of such carriers which is chemically stable, has not bad-influence upon target substances of inspections for living things, and is reliable.
It is a sixth object to provide a carrier holding micro-substances, system suspending such carriers, apparatus for manipulating such carriers and method of controlling positions of such carriers which can easily separate a target substance from the remote-acting bodies such as magnetic particles, collect and recover only the pure target substance, and change concentration.
It is a seventh object to provide a carrier holding micro-substances, system suspending such carriers, apparatus for manipulating such carriers and method of controlling positions of such carriers which can treat plural suspension systems without mixing these systems, can establish a uniform state, and can transfer and carry the useful substances (such as antibiotic and so on) to destination without contamination.
It is an eighth object to provide a carrier holding micro-substances, system suspending such carriers, apparatus for manipulating such carriers and method of controlling positions of such carriers which can effectively be available to easy and rapid process of test-analysis for useful substances, extraction-analysis for gene substances (DNA and so on), and detection-analysis for immune substances, and, can contribute to automatizing a clinical test.
It is a ninth object to provide a carrier holding micro-substances, system suspending such carriers, apparatus for manipulating such carriers and method of controlling positions of such carriers which can prevent from clog and so on and improve the efficiency of filtration and absorption by using the carriers as auxiliary chemicals of filter and absorption, controlling the density of carriers with disposition and direction of magnetic field.
It is a tenth object to provide a carrier holding micro-substances, system suspending such carriers, apparatus for manipulating such carriers and method of controlling positions of such carriers which can safely, easily, and automatically transfer a target substance between reaction vessels in order, in the case of a multistage chemical reaction.
It is an eleventh object to provide a carrier holding micro-substances, system suspending such carriers, apparatus for manipulating such carriers and method of controlling positions of such carriers which can easily, rapidly, and automatically inspect the efficient concentration of antibiotic by easy and rapid test with absorbing the biological active substance (such as antibiotic) or test bacterium (such as antibiotic test bacterium: a colon bacillus) to the carriers, or cultivating them in the carriers.
It is an twelfth object to provide a carrier holding micro-substances, system suspending such carriers, apparatus for manipulating such carriers and method of controlling positions of such carriers which can cultivate, recover, concentrate, or analyze substances (such as iron filings, dust, environmental pollution, food pollution, addition), microorganisms or cells of plants and animals.